This Is Why They Hate Us

In my mind, when you open a casket of Gamer Grub, a single white larva the size of a football throbs inside. Because they are purchased in these little silos, I assumed it was a beverage at first, which made the prospect of their Racing Wasabi flavor (Wasabi Soy Almonds and Peanuts, Wasabi Peas, Honey Mustard Sesame Sticks, etc.) a truly horrifying concept. But, no. They’re just snacks, sprayed with supplements, and then foisted on an utterly disinterested populace. The press release suggests that the product is “Designed for hungry gamers who want to continue playing games while consuming snacks,” something I could probably puzzle out on my own.

In the Tom’s Hardware interview, we learn that the snack’s creator is a “sometime gamer,” which is a bizarre turn of phrase. One either plays games or they do not. If they do not play games, but have instead discerned that “gamers” are a discrete “target demo,” there’s a word for them: carpetbaggers.

A comparison to Mana Potion is instructive: mana potions are magical energy drinks, so an energy drink called a “mana potion” is internally consistent. In the case of Gamer Grub, its twisted progenitor has named each regrettable salvo after both a flavor and a genre, in a suite of tin-eared constructions that I couldn’t even parse at first. “Action Pizza” is incoherent. “Sports PB&J” is nonsensical. The words “Strategy Chocolate” go together like caramel and genocide. I’m literally buffeted by these names, psychically assaulted. They are like the ceaseless, apocalyptic horrors of a prophetic dream.

It wouldn’t have been very difficult to name his Goddamned snack in such a way as to imply that it projected from an authentic place. He could have contacted Blizzard about making a World of Warcraft snack called Zul’Grub. See? That took five seconds.